Luckenbach

In the small hamlet of Luckenbach, Texas where "Everybody's Somebody" there is a magic, a musical magic.  It started back in 1849 when August Engel's daughter, Minna chose the name Luckenbach in honor of her fiancé, Albert Luckenbach. For years the town remained in the Engel family, but in 1970 Benno Engel put an ad in the local paper and sold the town.  It was purchased by Hondo Crouch and friends.  Hondo declared himself Mayor and made Marge the Sheriff.  He even appointed ambassadors to foreign countries.  There were "Hug-Ins", "World Fairs", "Ladies Chili Cook-offs" and a Mud Dauber Fest.  Under the 500-year old live oak trees were daily sessions of chit and chat, song-picking, domino playing and of course beer drinking.  In 1973 Jerry Jeff Walker came to Luckenbach to record an album, Viva Terlingua; it went gold. Four years later Bobby Emmons and Chips Moman penned "Luckenbach Texas" which became a hit for Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson.  Hondo and Sheriff Marge passed away but their spirits carry forward as do the songs. And new songs are added everyday.

Our first contact when we visited this small hamlet was Danny Terry.
He sat against the old oak with his battered hat and that mischievous twinkle in his eye.  His magical personality caught us into conversation and when he pulled that old guitar up and started singing one of his songs we were mesmerized as the spirit of Luckenbach filled our very souls.  There were others that sang under those old trees: Dale Mayfield, Bill Lewis, Hal Brown on harmonica, Cowboy Doug Davis, Jay Sims, John Bardy, Mike Haylee,  Cathy Bauer, Thomas Michael Reiley,  Jake Martin, Robert Kent, Mike Blakley, Gary Nunn, Jimmy Lee Jones, ....  Pofeee had his accordion talk the melodies.  Shan Kowert met Annie Acton; they made music come alive with his 12-string guitar and her powerful voice. The Gypsy Cowgirls had a style like no others. Jimmy Lee (Sausage) made you think Elvis was in the house. Levi Darr's hands were on fire on his guitar or his fiddle.  Rick Boss playing the harmonica like a ghost from behind the bar.  Bryan Moldondo and Melissa Weatherly were the soul music makers. And there is Walt Perryman, the Cowboy Poet of true stories.  As the years passed so did some of the best; some to the great up above and some to other venues, but their music remains. There are new voices in the house: David Harris, Dan Cowert, Gary Jones, Richard Bidman, Roger Moon and many that we only know by first names: Conrad, Paul, Norm, Thomas, Frank on bass, Trish from West Creek, Mar and Gonzo, Kevin.... 

People come here and some get it; they listen.  Others just come, drink a beer, talk to their friends; they don't get it.










Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Houston Fest Galax, VA

Image
We arrived in Galax, VA and stopped at our friend, Harold's. He was just putting the finishing touches on a cake he made for his nephew.  Harold is great in the kitchen! Brenda arrived!  We had a nice meet and greet. We went to the school across the street with Brenda and Harold and met Linda who likes hugs. Each day the three of them and others from the community volunteer to prepare backpacks of food items for children who otherwise would good the weekend hungry. They have fund raisers to get money and purchase food items that children can manage for breakfast and lunch.  They also get donations.  There is a man in Florida that heard about their need for food so ships items from Amazon.com for them to distribute. They get everything organized then run an assembly line to package items. The bags are then sent to the classrooms where the teachers put them in the children's backpacks so that no one is called to any attention. Time to head to Houston Fest whose missio...
Read more

Navy Buddies

Image
Today is a good day to drive! We drove across Amarillo, TX to visit with Will's Navy buddy, Ron.  We found him in the same park we had met him in about ten years ago. These two men met fifty years ago aboard The USS Platte.  ( Platte  made almost yearly deployments to the western  Pacific Ocean  from 1960 to 1968, including extensive operations in  Vietnamese  waters and refueling the  USS  Enterprise  (CVN-65)  task group off Korea during the  Pueblo incident . Platte served with the Pacific Fleet into 1970. She was sold for scrapping on 14 May 1971.)   Ron suggested La Fiesta Grande for an early dinner, a great Mexican place.  It was fun listening to the stories all starting with, "Do you remember...." We dropped Ron back off at home and met Don, a neighbor. See you again somewhere sometime, Ron. Okay, so check out these drinks that were delivered to the next table!
Read more

Our Own Palm Tree

Image
December 15, 2007 We woke parked at the Walmart; we have a nice spot we like way off to one side where we face a little lawn and have our own palm tree. Not many people park in this area because it is farther to walk into the store; at night a few other overnighters park in the lot, but they park up with the trucks so we pretty much have this area to ourselves. From there we drove to Victor Park, a community park with tennis courts, picnic area and fields for sports. The restrooms were locked, but no biggie as we have our own facilities. Will started up the generator and worked on a letter to the Chevy Guy in New Brunswick he has been formulating in his mind ever since we left Canada. The Roadtrek just stopped one day and we had to have it towed and lucky for us it was to a Chevy repair garage. We had our fuel tank fixed and they cut the fill tube. Roadtrek had designed a specialty one they didn’t have so they just jury rigged one. Fixed they said; we paid the bill of over a thousand d...
Read more